Getting there. I spent a few hours after work on Wednesday hacking away at the wood squares on the kitchen floor with the claw end of a hammer. Fire in my lower back and very slow progress. Yesterday I decided that I had to find something more efficient, so after work I wandered around the Ace Hardware around the corner, eventually settling on a Stanley Super Wonder Bar as my weapon of choice. This worked exponentially better for prying up chunks of flooring rather than splintering with the hammer. That is not a Wonder Bar pictured in the left-hand picture below, just a regular old metal bar that I found in our garage that came in handy a couple times today. Still explosions in my lower back, but nothing I can do about that I guess.

Today I put in probably ten hours flailing away on the eight billion nails, staples, and glue. Having some amazing entertaining college basketball games running in the background helped, as did making visible progress. As it stands now the kitchen is stripped to the original subfloor and ready to be rebuilt (which may or may not happen this weekend). I’ve just started planning the tile layout (as seen in the picture on the right). Nothing fancy, but I think it’ll end up looking decent.

This morning I finally got around to jumping through the necessary hoops to acquire my Washington state driver’s license. The necessary hoops being hanging out at the DMV for forty-five minutes and having my picture taken. While I was leaning against the wall waiting for my number to get called I eavesdropped on the cell phone conversation of a guy sitting about five feet away with a Commercial Driver’s License manual in his lap. Grime-stained jeans shredded at the cuffs, grime-stained baseball cap, grime-stained sweatshirt. The guy was trying to coordinate a backcountry snowboarding trip with a few of his friends for this weekend. I briefly drifted off into my own thought bubble, picturing how my life would be different if I were working construction by day and palling around on the backcountry slopes on the weekends. Trying to figure out what skills and equipment and how much experience one would need to snowboard off the beaten path in the mountains around here

I came snapping back to my eavesdropping though when the guy began talking about a planned photoshoot with Transworld Snowboarding the following weekend (something about a $10 grand bonus if he made the cover, but that they were at least guaranteed four pages) and then continued on about coordinating with Shaun White and Ross Powers for an upcoming freestyle competition in Utah. Lodging and airfare paid for by Burton and Dragon. And it wasn’t braggadocio or anything, just the matter-of-factness that comes with an every day occurrence (in the manner of, hey I’ll pick up some beer on the way out if you want to bring the steaks). So, I guess that answers my “how much experience” question.

Day two. More kitchen destruction. I scrapped the peeling of the linoleum and yanked out the subfloor underneath instead. With a circular saw I sliced up sections of the floor about a quarter inch deep then pried up the stapled down wood. Only to discover a patchwork of wood squares underneath. Nothing too classy, so I’m going to stick with the planned ceramic tile. As the floor currently stands I’ve still got about an inch and three quarters of wood in the kitchen which should be plenty sturdy for our light use. My options now are to lay the ceramic tile down over the wood squares (undulates a bit in places and has staples sticking up everywhere) or to remove the wood squares and lay tile over the next layer of subfloor (more work and a waste of a lot of decent wood). I’m leaning toward the second option but will make that decision tomorrow.

Oh no! What have we started?

So begins the major projects phase of house number two. Quite a few things on the agenda as time allows. This week I’m hoping to tear out the old linoleum in the kitchen in order to start laying tile this weekend or next week (already purchased a couple hundred square feet of porcelain tile from Home Depo). Hopefully the old adhesive isn’t too grumpy. I’m thinking of skipping the backer board since we have a pretty thick subfloor and the extra height of the board would mean having to plain the bottom of the door into the garage. We’ll see on that though. Depends somewhat on how nicely the linoleum comes up. Nothing is ever easy on these projects.

The dogs know what to do with a sunny afternoon. Relaaaax. They seem to pick the non-grassy side of our backyard when given the option. Nora especially likes to roll on her back in the dirt. She’s also working on digging a nice little crater in the middle of the yard whenever she gets the chance.

I had a dream about a thunderstorm last night and it occurred to me today that I don’t think I’ve heard thunder (or seen lightning) since we moved to Yakima. (Maybe one rumble late at night last summer.) It just doesn’t happen. Last summer it was sunny just about every day and when it did rain it would be a twenty minute mini cloudburst. This spring whenever I see rain in the forecast I know that means it will get cloudy for a few hours and then it might sprinkle briefly. No, I’m not complaining about the abundance of sun, it’s just that I wouldn’t mind seeing some angry weather every once in a while.